Once a lip ring, now snakebites.

I know it says six months, but it's actually closer to 9. There's no option for that, but since it's closer to six months than a year (only by a few days!) I figured that's what I'd go with.

For three months, I'd had a lip ring on the right side. For a bit over a month and a half, I'd been absently thinking that hey, snakebites are cool. For about three weeks, I'd been thinking that damn, snakebites are awesome. I should seriously think about getting the other side of my lip pierced. For about a week and a half, I realised that I'd been subconsciously convincing myself that I should, in fact, get the other side done. Despite having told myself when I got it done that the lip ring would be the last piercing I would get, I knew that I would be getting myself snakebites in the near future.

So, on the 4th of August 2007, I decided that was the day. I was going to a friend's place that night (as were about a half dozen other friends), so what better way to surprise them all?

A few hours before I was due to head over to the friend's place, I wandered into the shopping plaza where the store was located, rang my mum and told her that I intended to get snakebites done. She's not a fan of piercings, but she understands that it's my body, and provided that I can pay for it to be done myself, she's quite happy to laugh at me for (in her mind) looking ridiculous with all these bits of metal stuck through me.

I got to the shop and told them that I wanted the left side of my lip pierced, to make snakebites. After filling out the form and what have you, I was told to come back in about 15 minutes, after the stud had been autoclaved. After the fifteen minutes had passed, I went back to find that the autoclave hadn't finished. Actually, it hadn't started. While it was being set up again, another girl came in and said that she wanted her navel pierced. Since they hadn't done the autoclaving of my labret stud yet, they autoclaved them both (in separate packets, of course) in the same cycle.

While the autoclave was finishing up, the girl's mum rang her and basically told her to hurry up and get home. Since I'd come in and filled out the form and paid earlier than her, I was supposed to go first. However, I told them that since I lived five minutes away and wasn't in a rush, she could go before me.

Finally, the time came. I was led into the studio. I was getting pierced by an apprentice, so both she and the piercer she was apprenticing under came in. She asked where I wanted it done, and I told her that I wanted it done so that it had the same placement as the one on the right. After dotting a couple of times and not being sure if the placement was right, we all laughed and agreed that it would be a lot easier to figure out if it was even if I took out the ring I had in on the right side.

Eventually, we all agreed on a placement that looked even. The music and tattoo-related discussion died down as I was told to lie down and my lip was clamped. Deep breathe in, exhale, push needle through. It hurt more than my other lip piercing did when the needle went through, but post-needle pain was a lot less. The stud was put in and another stud was purchased and put in the other side, since I thought it'd look silly with a ring in one side and a stud in the other. So, ring from first lip piercing and aftercare spray in hand, I wandered out and off home before going to my friend's place.

It wasn't long before I discovered the bane of every new lip piercing with a stud in it: biting the back of the post. Owwie. The ever-famous crusties made a shorter and less annoying visitation than they had with my first lip piercing, which I was grateful for. However, one thing that happened with this piercing that didn't with the other was that a whole lot of pus and other horrible-tasting bodily fluids came out of it over the course of a couple of days. Ew. Fortunately, after it went away it never came back, and I never got crusties after that either. Eventually, I got somewhat used to having bars of different lengths in my lip (the old piercing had an 8mm bar, new one had 10mm), and got okay at eating and not biting the posts. What really annoyed me was that I had no swelling at all, so I had to put up with a stupidly long bar for the six weeks I had to wait before changing the jewellery.

Six weeks after the piercing was done, I was ready to switch over to rings. I'd gotten a ring to match the one I'd had in the right side a week and a half beforehand. After easily getting the studs out, I spent the better part of 40 minutes getting the rings in. Since then I've gotten plenty of practice, and now it never takes me any longer than about 10 minutes to switch. The only exception to this is retainers. They take forever, in my (limited) experience with them.

It's now a few days shy of 9 months since I got snakebites as of typing this. I'm glad I had those idle 'snakebites are cool!' thoughts all that time ago. I listened to the little voice in my head and I've never looked back. To anyone considering snakebites, I say go for it! They look awesome and feel great to have.

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